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Rock in a Hard Place

With the USO short on big-name acts and the military trying to entertain troops in remote bases, unknown bands are braving battle zones to build their fan base.
The 21st-century answer to Bob Hope.

By

John Jurgensen

Updated March 24, 2007 11:59 p.m. ET

(See Corrections & Amplifications item below.)

At a U.S. military base in al Qa'im, a dusty town in the Anbar Province of Iraq, 400 soldiers crowded into a storage building doubling as a concert hall for a night last year. The entertainment was a six-piece country band and a young Nashville singer named Carly Goodwin. Few of the soldiers had heard of her, but they wound up cheering, dancing onstage and singing along. Some sat on...